276°
Posted 20 hours ago

The Lighthouse Witches: The perfect new haunting gothic thriller you won’t be able to put down

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

I have a major soft spot for Gaelic myths and absolutely loved Cooke's take on wildlings. I think the mixing of fae lore and witchy magic was so incredibly clever. It was also the PERFECT amount of creepy, just enough to make me nervous without forcing me to put down the book 🤣 Olivia Stay has just left her home in northern England, dragged her three daughters with her, and headed north on an hours-long drive to a remote island off the east coast of Scotland. She is an artist, with a commission to paint a mural on the inside of a 149-foot-tall lighthouse, which is in less-than-stellar condition. Her mysterious employer has left drawings for her of what he wants. She and the girls will be staying on the lighthouse property, in a small house, called a bothy. The lighthouse has an intriguing name. “You’re staying at the Longing?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Quite a history, that place.” The Lighthouse Witches is told from varying viewpoints in the years 1998 and 2021, with a subplot set in the 1600s. The story is about a single mother, Liv, who is contracted to paint a rather strange, and possibly Satanic, mural on the inside walls of a lighthouse called The Longing on an island off the eastern shores of Scotland at the end of the 20th century. Tagging along are her three children, teenaged Sapphire (or Saffy for short), and Luna and Clover, who are just little girls. Flash forward to the future, and a thirty-something (and pregnant) Luna is looking for her mother and two sisters who vanished off the island in 1998. When Clover is found, she is still seven years old. She has marks on her that take the form of a date, 2021, and the legend of the island is that this means that the child is a wildling or an imposter who looks like Clover but is a fairy in disguise. In any event, Luna takes Clover to the island to find out the true reason for the events of 1998 and why Clover hasn’t aged. In the 1998 timeline, Saffy reads from a grimoire that is left in the home near the lighthouse where the family is staying, and it is partially a diary written in the 1600s that details witch burnings on the island. Thank you so much to the publisher, Berkley Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review.

The Lighthouse Witches’ Set As Limited Series From ‘The Lighthouse Witches’ Set As Limited Series From

Liv wonders about the stories told to her by the residents about the island's history of witches, curses, and wildings. Originally skeptical of the island folklore, when Sapphire and Clover go missing, Liv is wild in her search and open to the possibility of truth behind the island's dark history. The other two perspectives are that of Sapphire (Liv’s eldest daughter) and a mysterious grimoire that contains a man’s narration of the witch hunts in Scotland during the 1660s.I raced through this. This book was creepy and atmospheric within the first couple of chapters... and this continued through out the novel, drawing me in. We follow Liv as she is introduced to the island, and the local oddballs. (and wonder why she suddenly dropped everything and dragged her kids north several weeks ahead of the appointed time) But when she sees a small, almost feral-seeming white-haired child on the property, and the police do not seem to take her seriously, things get more interesting. Local lore has it that condemned witches, in league with the fae realm, created wildlings, copies of island children, who would suddenly appear out of nowhere, intent on wiping out family lines. Locals hold that any such beings must be killed ASAP. Then two of her daughters, Saffy and Clover, disappear. When single mother Liv is commissioned to paint a mural in a 100-year-old lighthouse on a remote Scottish island, it’s an opportunity to start over with her three daughters–Luna, Sapphire, and Clover. When two of her daughters go missing, she’s frantic. She learns that the cave beneath the lighthouse was once a prison for women accused of witchcraft. The locals warn her about wildlings, supernatural beings who mimic human children, created by witches for revenge. Liv is told wildlings are dangerous and must be killed. A taut, scary thriller that winds the suspense so tightly you can barely breathe. I was rooting for the heroine all the way to the terrifying conclusion. This one will definitely keep you up at night.”—Simone St. James, New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel

The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke | Waterstones

This is a multiple timelines/POVs story - 1998, and 2021 with historical part, 1667, read from a grimoire found at the bothy where the family is staying. Atmospheric and spoooky... I loved it! The isolated lighthouse and the rumors it was built on a cave where witches were tortured centuries ago gave me a creepy uneasy feeling of danger I lovedThe timelines and characters’ narrators jumping around and things got a bit confusing at times, and I had to wonder if that was to throw us off a bit to make things seem more convincing.

The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke | Goodreads The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke | Goodreads

Midway I questioned how dark it was going to go and whether I needed to grab a cushion to hide behind, but it made me use my imagination for the darker moments which may have made things worse. The tension grew towards an unexpected and satisfying conclusion. Would I recommend? stars from me to this engrossing story. (It might have been 3.75 had I read the book. The bonus is for the narrators.) Lòn Haven was meant to be safe. But soon strange things start to happen. Haunting noises in the dead of night, animal skeletons left on Liv’s doorstep and strangest of all, unknown children at the lighthouse, who disappear without a trace. This is dismissed as ancient folklore, mythology and legend, except that every member of the family vanishes, only Luna is left behind. More than two decades later, a haunted and traumatised Luna is pregnant, still harbouring hopes that her family will return. Then she gets a call that informs her that her sister, Clover, has been found alive, but impossibly Clover is still 7 years old, how could that be? Moreover, Clover's strange behaviour has Luna wondering if she is a wilding, all of which has her returning to the island, to her memories, and in search of the truth of the mystery of what happened to her family all those years ago. The narrative is split between three timelines, from the 17th century from a grimoire of magic, spells and diary, from the family in 1998, and in the present with Luna.The island is not the idyllic place one would imagine, there is talk of witches being burned in a cave beneath the lighthouse, and murmurings of wildlings (supernatural beings who mimic human children) and though sceptical, Liv has to admit that there is definitely an air of menace, a feeling that something bad is about to happen. Liv doesn't believe in fairy tales, but when two of her daughters disappear, she begins to question if the stories that her friend, Isla, told her might be true. A couple of reader friends found the plot dragging in the middle but I couldn’t detect any major dip in pace. Probably because I was listening to it than reading it. Cooke manages to set a compelling timeshift mystery in a very real world, where believable people navigate authentic problems … surprising and inventive’ Sarah Burton I found the entire thing to be original and chilling. It definitely kept me up at night. The atmosphere and lore of the town were my two favorite aspects, but really there is so much to enjoy in this story!

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment